Month: July 2019

… modern research exploring the content of dreams of healthy subjects, as well as dreams of patients suffering from trauma … make clear that most of our dreams contain residue from our daily concerns and events — interrupted by seemingly random episodes either imagined or recalled and woven into the narrative tapestry. There is usually clear continuity between dream content and waking conceptions: People who are anxious have anxiety dreams; victims of trauma have flashbacks or recurrences of their traumatic experiences. Sometimes we express sexual longing for somebody — but that hardly requires decoding. By and large, dreams do not disguise our desires but rather express our concerns in a readily understandable and coherent manner.

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Christof Koch is chief scientist and president of the Allen Institute of Brain Science, and the author of the forthcoming book The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can’t Be Computed.

On July 27, 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted, “no human being would want to live there.” Where? In Rep. Elijah E. Cummings’s (D-Md.) district in Baltimore. He’s black. It’s a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess,” according to Trump.

The Washington Post calls this “divisive rhetoric”.

I beg to differ.

This is racist.

Cummings and thousands of other people live in his district. But, they’re not human beings according to the President. Racists dehumanize their targets like this.

I’m not being pedantic. This is how racists speak.

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See “Trump campaign sees political advantage in a divisive appeal to working-class white voters” by Toluse Olorunnipa and Ashley Parker, The Washington Post, July 27, 2019.

Migrants and refugees from Central America are being held in concentration camps along the U.S. border with Mexico. Please note that they are not death camps, but they bear the hallmarks of other concentration camps from the 20th century.

The conditions are inhumane. The inmates are a persecuted minority. The inmates are considered dirty, diseased, and dangerous. They are seen as what’s wrong with the country. The country would be better off without them, in fact, without all Latino immigrants.

It’s true that previous administrations in Washington should be ashamed of how they treated detainees, but that’s no excuse for the Trump administration. This administration is not bound by the policies of previous administrations. They are perfectly able to formulate their own, which they have done.

The administration’s policies are cruel. They have been designed to be cruel. I don’t know how the president’s advisors can sleep at night. They should know better.